Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he “stepped right in it” - but didn't actually apologize or take back his past comments - when he compared homosexuality to alcoholism last week during a visit to liberal-leaning, gay-friendly, San Francisco.

He stepped right in it on June 11, when in a question-and-answer session at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, he was asked about the Texas Republican Party's adoption this month of supporting access to "reparative therapy" for gays and lesbians - a disproven process intended to change sexual orientation.

Perry's answer: "I don't know. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a doctor."

Commonwealth Club interviewer Greg Dalton then asked him whether he believed homosexuality is a disorder.

"Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that," Perry answered. "I may have the genetic coding that I'm inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way."

The comment made national headlines and prompted condemnation from gay rights groups and high-powered politicians including California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who married the first same-sex couples in San Francisco when he was mayor in 2004. Newsom, who also went to rehab in 2007 for alcholism, tweeted that Perry "must apologize for (his) ignorant and hateful remarks."

Perry, who is considering his second run for the White House run in 2016, never actually said "I'm sorry" for the remarks, and he never took back his analogy while speaking at the Christian Science Monitor event.

To see excerpts of his Commonwealth Club and Christian Science Monitor speeches.